May of 1995 was the end of my sophomore year of high school down in San Jose, and while I studied on a Thursday afternoon for Mr. Pimentel’s science final or Señora Navarro’s Spanish class, somewhere not too far up 880 Jeff Buckley was tuning up his acoustic guitar for a solo midday set on the college campus of UC Berkeley.

Jeff had been touring in support of Grace for nearly a year, currently with Juliana Hatfield, and was preparing to leave for Scotland in a few weeks. He would play San Francisco’s beautiful old Great American Music Hall that night in a sold-out show.

According to David Browne’s excellent Dream Brother book, Jeff had just been named one of People Magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People In The World” this month, and was “mortified.” Yet here Jeff is in fine, chatty form – his lightly joking, sometimes sardonic banter (imitating Scott Weiland, among other things) counterbalanced by the gorgeous weight of his songs, inducing chills even in the warm afternoon sun. Just listen to that intro to “Mojo Pin”; it’s near mystical.

I never did see Jeff live, but I delight in finding these recordings of shows that were happening all around me. I can listen to them now, and sorta, you know — pretend.

you can do it through itunes, i hear. set the beginning and end time for the first song under get info –> options, then after you’ve done that, right click again on the song and select “create an mp3 version.” repeat for each track and it should work.

wow! thank you for this.. man, ive never heard this before. so awesome.. truly thankful to hear this..
i only wish i could go back there and punch the people talking.. but we never know when a rainbow will come or go, so we forgive i guess.

Thank you for this, Heather. I can’t wait to listen. Oddly enough- on the 17th I had such an urge to listen to “Grace” after not hearing it in a while, and I played it all day in the car. It was meant to be. :]

Leave a comment

Search:

About Me

Name: Heather BrowneLocation: Colorado, originally by way of CaliforniaGiving context to the torrent since 2005.

"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook

"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel."—Hunter S. Thompson

Let's be Friends

About The Songs

Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. Rock on.

Archives

I AM FUEL, YOU ARE FRIENDS is brought to you by Fuel/Friends LLC. Ownership of all audio and visual material displayed here remains with their creators and/or owners and is cited accordingly.. Illustrations by Luke Flowers. Design & Layout by Dayjob.